Change
by The Honorary Weasley
Summary: Gwen hates it at Beauxbatons. She doesn't even want to be a Witch anymore. So her aunt arranges for her to be sent to another school instead: Hogwarts. Will the change help Gwen see sense, or just unhinge her even more?
1. Chapter 1

Gwendolyn Bishop remembered clearly the day her father had walked out. The day her mother had died, and the day she had been sent from her home in England to live with her Aunt Lucie in France. The day she had found out that her aunt was a Witch, and the day she had found out that she herself was one as well. She also remembered the day she had received her letter, informing her that she had received a place in Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.

Beauxbatons had three houses: Sanchez House, Garcia House, and Gwen's own house, Rousseau.

Gwen had begun to make friends with a group of fellow students on the beautiful Beauxbatons ship, on her way to her first year at the school, and Dianne Lafond, Émilie Bonnaud, Garland Lecoeur and Marion Delhaye still tormented her, two years later. They had all been sorted to Garcia House.

Dispite being three years older, Gwendolyn's only friend in her House was Fleur Delacour. Fleur was also the only person who didn't make fun of her English accent or her pidgin French. Gwen had never really grasped the language, and detested how she always sounded so different from everyone else, even on the rare occasions when she managed to babble out a sentence in perfect French.

Now, here Gwen was, sitting alone on the ship, on her way to be a Third Year at Beauxbatons. Everyone else seemed to be looking forward to it, as Third Year was the last year you had to spend in the Junior School. Next year, Gwen and her classmates would move to the Senior School, which meant they would move into the Senior Dormitories, would have access to the Special Library, and the fact that in the Senior School at Beauxbatons, Boys and Girls classes were mixed, rather than separate, as was the practice for the Juniors.

As Gwen sat there, she heard someone walking down the corridor outside the small compartment of the ship she had claimed. She knew it wouldn't be any of the horrid girls from Garcia House, as each House had its own part of the ship, split up into compartments for four or five students each. There was nothing to stop boys and girls sitting together on the ship, but rarely did any boys sit in compartments already occupied by girls, and the girls would never dare walk into a compartment with boys inside. Gwen didn't care much for boys. She had once made friends with Luther, a boy in her year at Beauxbatons, but she hadn't spoken to him for a year or more.

The footsteps got nearer, and Gwen looked up as she heard the compartment door open. She was greeted by the sight of Fleur Delacour, though she was accompanied by a small, blonde, very pretty girl who didn't look very old at all.

"Bonjour, Gwen." said Fleur.

"Bonjour." replied Gwendolyn, looking again at the small girl.

"Oh!" said Fleur. "This eez my leetle sister, Gabrielle. You did not see her on thee ship last year, as she was in First Year, and had to sit with the other new students."

"Hello." said Gwen to Fleur's sister.

"Bonjour." replied the girl shyly.

"May we seet with you?" asked Fleur.

"Yeah, sure." said Gwen, as Fleur sat down opposite her, and Gabrielle took the seat next to her sister.

"So, you're in Second year then?" asked Gwen. Gabrielle nodded. "What House are you in?"

"She's in our House." said Fleur.

"Good." said Gwen. "How long do you think it'll be until we get there?"

"Peerhaps about twenty meenits." said Fleur.

"Ugh." replied Gwen. "It feels like we've been travelling forever."

"We've only been on thee ship for an hour." said Fleur, rolling her eyes.

"It feels like forever." said Gwen, gazing out of the window. The Rousseau deck, which was in the middle of the three House decks, was currently about six feet above the water's surface, as the ship was no longer underwater. The students above, the students from Sanchez, were quite a bit above the surface, and would probably have quite a nice view. The Garcia students below would still have an amazing view of underneath the sea.

No matter what way she looked at it, Gwendolyn Bishop was not looking forward to another year at Beauxbatons.


	2. Chapter 2

"_Finally_…" groaned Gwen as she hauled her trunk off the ship half an hour later.

"Gwen?" asked Fleur. "You don't seem very happy to be here. Is sometheeng wrong?"

"Fleur, it's no secret I hate the place." replied Gwen, stopping for a moment to catch her breath.

"But why?" asked Fleur.

"I hate the way I'm always so different, no matter what I do and I hate those darn Garcia kids and I hate the _place_ itself, it looks like something out of a sickly fairy tale." ranted Gwen.

"Well, I can't do much to help you, Gwen." replied Fleur, shrugging. "But on thee positive side of theengs, the Welcoming Feast here is always deelicious, that you cannot deny!"

"I suppose so," replied Gwen, smiling despite her foul mood, and the pair set off together, headed for Beauxbatons Castle.

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Gwen sat next to Elizabeth Fitzroy at the Rousseau table when she entered the Great Hall. As usual, she had to sit through a speech from Madame Maxime, spoken in perfect gibberish except the few odd words she recognised. Her only way of knowing what to do was to follow everyone else.

Everyone else in the room began to break up the food on their plates with their shiny silver forks and knives, and Gwen followed suit. The students at Beauxbatons were given a plate of food at mealtimes, and they ate what they were given or they ate nothing, basically. For this particular meal, Gwen found her plate filled with some form of meat she thought was pork, along with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Cooked to perfection by the House Elves, naturally.

The one thing about Beauxbatons that especially aggravated Gwen was the fact that their plates disappeared as soon as the majority of students had finished. Sometimes, it seemed to Gwen like she was faced with the task of choosing between malnourishment and indigestion. The slightly better flipside of this was that dessert appeared within a minute or so, which she never failed to horse down eagerly.

Desert today was something called _Pompe aux Pommes du Perigord_, according to Madame Maxime. It was some sort of pastry thing, and she tasted apples in it, as well as some form of nuts. The fact of the matter was that Gwen couldn't care less what it was; it tasted good.

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Gwen was tucked up in her bed. It was past midnight, but she couldn't sleep. She didn't _want_ to sleep.

Everyone had new room-mates this year, and Gwen had ended up with Aimee Lucas, the one girl she would have given anything to avoid. Truth be told, Gwen was terrified of Aimee. Even in the blue silk Beauxbatons uniform that seemed to make everyone else look sickeningly feminine, Aimee still managed to look menacing. She was taller than everyone else in her year. Heck, she was even taller than some of the Senior School, never mind girls her _own_ age. She had dark brown, almost black hair that just about reached her shoulders and was always held back in a messy ponytail. She spoke with a harsh accent, and refused to speak any English for Gwen, except when was imitating her pathetic attempts to communicate in the language everyone else spoke. She was truly horrible.

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She woke with a start. She groaned, and reached for the clock next to her bed, and squinted at in in the dim light. It read five past two in the morning.

She pushed herself up onto her elbows, and realised the reason behind her rude awakening. Two of the other four five girls in her dormitory, Avril and Belle, were yelling at each other in the corner of the room. Ann, an extremely shy, quiet girl, was pulling her blanket tightly around herself, literally cowering away from her two screeching roommates. Gwen was not in a mood to sort this out in a reasonable fashion.

"SHUT IT!" she yelled, which only earned a strange look from Belle, a blonde who lived up to her stereotype and could not speak one word of English, no matter how much time and effort her teachers invested in her.

Belle turned to Jenny, the best English-speaking girl in the room, who responded "Elle a dit tais-toi, Belle."

Gwen knew enough French to recognise that she had said "_She said shut up, Belle…"_

"And the general stereotype of Beauxbatons girls is proper _ladies_…" she muttered to herself, falling back into her bed. "As if."

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"Wake up, stupid." said one of Gwen's new room-mates loudly, chucking a backpack at her. Gwen woke with a start.

"Why'd you throw that at me?" she asked the girl, annoyed.

"I have no idea what you just said to me." replied the girl. _At least she speaks good English_, thought Gwen to herself.

"I said, why did you throw a backpack at me?" asked Gwen again.

"Because you won't wake up." said the girl. "Breakfast is in fifteen minutes. So get up."

"I'm not hungry." said Gwen, speaking more clearly than she naturally would have done.

"Just get up!" yelled the girl. "You are stupid!"

"Glad you know some good English insults." said Gwen, laughing humourlessly.

"I know some more," said the girl. "Do not make me use them."

"Wow, so scary." said Gwen.

"What even is your name, stupid?" asked the girl.

"Oh, I'm Olympe Maxime," said Gwen. The girl gave her a strange look, and Gwen rolled her eyes. "Who do you _think_ I am?" she asked.

"You are not funny." said the girl, crossing her arms. "Wait, now I remember. You are Gwendolyn Bishop."

"Gwendolyn Bishop, yep." said Gwen, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"I'm Nicole." said the girl.

"Nice to know." said Gwen.

"Just get up now." said Nicole. "Or the entire Rousseau House will get punished."

"Yeah, because I've just got _so_ much Rousseau _pride_." said Gwen, sighing deeply as she swung her legs out of bed.

Either Nicole did not understand what had just been said to her, or she decided to ignore it, because she left the dormitory as soon as the words were spoken.

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Gwen's first class was English. It was the one class she truly excelled in, for obvious reasons.

"Bonjour, class," said the teacher, as the Third Form girls filed into the classroom. Gwen ended up with the only empty chair, next to Ann, the girl from her dorm. That wasn't too bad, all things considered.

"Bonjour, Madame Oliver," chorused the class.

Madame Oliver, the new English teacher, rambled on in rapid French, stopping every now and again to summarise what she had just said in English for Gwen, who quickly decided she didn't mind this teacher. Some of her other teachers just left her to work it out for herself.

She managed to gather that today they would be learning how to give instructions for potion-making in English. She actually laughed to herself at how ridiculous it was, since things like Pollyjuice and Felix Felicis and Amortenia were not going to change in any sort of translation, they were like names, the same no matter where you go.

They were instructed to work in partners, and Gwen was really quite pleased to find that Ann, whose surname she now knew was Michel, spoke exceptional English.

"My father is from Scotland," she said. "I've been there many times, and he taught me the language."

"I'm from England," replied Gwen. "But I went to Scotland once."

"You don't seem to speak fluent French quite yet," said Ann, smiling.

"Yet?" replied Gwen. "It's taken me five years to get to the level I'm at!"

The two girls laughed, and Gwen thought she might have actually made a friend.

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"Bishop!" she heard someone yell. She turned around, and felt like something dropped in her stomach when she saw who it was.

"I saw you talking to Ann," said Aimee, faking friendliness.

"Yeah," said Gwen, not letting her voice betray her fear.

"Don't." said Aimee simply.

"Huh?" replied Gwen, looking up at Aimee, and then wishing she hadn't. The bully grabbed the front of her uniform and looked her in the eyes.

"If I ever see you talk to her again, it'll be the last thing you do, got it?" she asked.

"Why should I do as you say?" asked Gwen, determined not to give in so easily. She couldn't help but notice that the girl actually spoke perfect English; she had just kept that to herself in the past to torment Gwen.

"Because, right now, I'm the one who has the power to hurt _you_, not the other way around." said Aimee.

"It's a free country, I can speak to who I like," said Gwen.

"Bishop?" asked Aimee.

"Lucas." replied Gwen boldly.

"Have a nice time in the infirmary," said Aimee, before throwing her hard against the wall.


End file.
